N’western to play most home games on lakefront
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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
Northwestern will play most of its home football games during the 2024 and 2025 seasons at a temporary on-campus stadium flanking Lake Michigan, while construction takes place to rebuild Ryan Field.
The temporary stadium will be built on the site where the school’s lacrosse and soccer teams (men’s and women’s) play and will continue to host events for those sports. Northwestern likely will play some home football games at Wrigley Field — where it hosted games in 2010, 2021 and 2023 — and possibly other Chicago-area venues, but most contests will be held on campus.
Wildcats coach David Braun told ESPN that the on-campus facility will “bridge the gap between today and a new Ryan Field,” which is set to open for the 2026 season.
“We’re thrilled to have something that is truly ours,” Braun said. “It’s playing at home, playing on campus. Part of college athletics and the thing that makes it so special is the campus community involvement. It provides the opportunity for an incredible home-field advantage.”
Braun thanked university president Michael Schill, board of trustees chair Peter Barris, athletic director Derrick Gragg and coaches of other impacted teams for supporting the temporary stadium plan, which had been mentioned several years ago but wasn’t considered a strong option until the past few months. Northwestern had discussions with Wrigley Field, Soldier Field and SeatGeek Stadium about hosting games in 2024 and 2025. Constuction to rebuild Ryan Field, a project estimated at around $800 million, began in February.
Northwestern did not announce a specific capacity or other details for the temporary stadium, as the configuration is still be designed, other than to note that it will be “considerably less” than both the original Ryan Field (47,130) and the new version (35,000). Season-ticket holders will have the first priority to secure tickets, and students also will have a reserved section in the facility, as construction will begin this summer. Northwestern often has had sizable contingents of visiting teams’ fans at its home games.
The school is partnering with InProduction, which constructed seating for last year’s NASCAR event in downtown Chicago, as well as temporary seating, staging and structures for college teams at Hawai’i and Florida State.
“A lot of things still need to be worked out, but I have lot of confidence we can troubleshoot,” Braun said. “Credit to other teams that use this space for a willingness to work together to see if this was something that is truly an option. It’s a tight-knit community that supported one another. I’m just really excited.”
The Wildcats have home games this coming season against Miami (Ohio), Duke, Eastern Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio State and Illinois. Braun told ESPN that “select” games will be played on campus and some could still be moved, especially to a venue like Wrigley Field after the Major League Baseball season.
Braun said players were “thrilled” to hear about the on-campus stadium, noting that he had been frequently asked about it in recent weeks as talk of the possibility grew.
“The primary concern for me was what our student-athlete experience was going to be for two years,” he said. “To have a situation where our guys aren’t traveling to different venues each week, traveling long distances on buses after games, instead we’re on campus. As it became apparent that we needed to explore all options, I’m proud that our university leadership made the best decision for our student-athletes.
“Our guys recognize this is an incredible opportunity.”
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Tim Keown
TOKYO — Shohei Ohtani seems impervious to a variety of conditions that afflict most humans — nerves, anxiety, distraction — but it took playing a regular-season big-league game in his home country to change all of that.
After the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ Opening Day 4-1 win over the Chicago Cubs in the Tokyo Dome, Ohtani made a surprising admission. “It’s been a while since I felt this nervous playing a game,” he said. “It took me four or five innings.”
Ohtani had two hits and scored twice, and one of his outs was a hard liner that left his bat at more than 96 mph, so the nerves weren’t obvious from the outside. But clearly the moment, and its weeklong buildup, altered his usually stoic demeanor.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Shohei nervous,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But one thing I did notice was how emotional he got during the Japanese national anthem. I thought that was telling.”
As the Dodgers began the defense of last year’s World Series win, it became a night to showcase the five Japanese players on the two teams. For the first time in league history, two Japanese pitchers — the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Cubs’ Shota Imanaga — faced each other on Opening Day. Both pitched well, with Imanaga throwing four hitless innings before being removed after 69 pitches.
“Seventy was kind of the number we had for Shota,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “It was the right time to take him out.”
The Dodgers agreed, scoring three in the fifth inning off reliever Ben Brown. Imanaga kept the Dodgers off balance, but his career-high four walks created two stressful innings that ran up his pitch count.
Yamamoto rode the adrenaline of pitching in his home country, routinely hitting 98 with his fastball and vexing the Cubs with a diving splitter over the course of five three-hit innings. He threw with a kind of abandon, finding a freedom that often eluded him last year in his first year in America.
“I think last year to this year, the confidence and conviction he has throwing the fastball in the strike zone is night and day,” Roberts said. “If he can continue to do that, I see no reason he won’t be in the Cy Young conversation this season.”
Cubs right fielder Seiya Suzuki went hitless in four at bats — the Cubs had only three hits, none in the final four innings against four relievers out of the Dodgers’ loaded bullpen — and rookie Roki Sasaki will make his first start of his Dodger career in the second and final game of the series Wednesday.
“I don’t think there was a Japanese baseball player in this country who wasn’t watching tonight,” Roberts said.
The Dodgers were without Mookie Betts, who left Japan on Monday after it was decided his illness would not allow him to play in this series. And less than an hour before game time, first baseman Freddie Freeman was scratched with what the team termed “left rib discomfort,” a recurrence of an injury he first sustained during last year’s playoffs.
The night started with a pregame celebration that felt like an Olympic opening ceremony in a lesser key. There were Pikachus on the field and a vaguely threatening video depicting the Dodgers and Cubs as Monster vs. Monster. World home-run king Saduharu Oh was on the field before the game, and Roberts called meeting Oh “a dream come true.”
For the most part, the crowd was subdued, as if it couldn’t decide who or what to root for, other than Ohtani. It was admittedly confounding: throughout the first five innings, if fans rooted for the Dodgers they were rooting against Imanaga, but rooting for the Cubs meant rooting against Yamamoto. Ohtani, whose every movement is treated with a rare sense of wonder, presented no such conflict.
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